L'ultima tappa

Director Wanda Jakubowska was, herself, interred in Auschwitz during the latter stages of WWII, and so is uniquely placed to tell us the story of "Marta" (a stirring effort from Barbara Drapinski). A Jewish woman who is sent for slaughter to this infamous camp, but whom - by a curious twist of fate - is selected to interpret for the Nazis. That may spare her, but she must watch her family and countless others live lives of violence, deprivation and humiliation before the potential relief of death was visited upon them. What we see here illustrates really succinctly the brutality that went on here; and sometimes that appeared all the worst because the criminal frau were just as complicit in these atrocities as the men. Indeed, some seemed to positively relish their newfound power! The use of a gramophone record to cover the sounds of the regular beatings that were administered to those less co-operative, or dissident, or whose face simply didn't fit in, was ingeniously odious. An ensemble cast of powerful character actors and the setting at the camp itself adds a ghastliness to the impact of this film that didn't really need to rely on a script to augment the experience of the viewer. Defeatist these ladies weren't - a stoicism and determination crept in and took hold, and that is epitomised by the brave and increasingly shrewd "Marta" as she - and her thousands of fellow inmates - constantly treads on egg shells to survive. You can almost smell the evil coming from this film, and as an example of the gruesome inhumanity mankind can have for it's own brethren, it is spine-tingling. It's not especially graphic nor detailed in it's menace - but the sum of the parts makes for a compelling film that perhaps the warmongers of 2024 could do with watching.

Though rarely shown and hardly available this is one of the most remarkable films about the concentration camp of Auschwitz ever made. Shot as early as 1947, partly on location at the camp, even featuring former inmates among the actors, and using original languages, OSTATNI ETAP is a kind of first-hand re-enactment and gives for the most part a very convincing, gripping and realistic portrait of what life was like at the camp. The film is well directed and staged,occasionally using dramatic compositions and lightning to a striking effect. It is actually no less impressive as any then-contemporary film by Roberto Rossellini and other of the "neo-realist" school. The whole now-familiar iconography of Holocaust cinema is already there, probably for the first time, copied in hundreds of movies to come. Andrzej Munk's more stylized PASAZERKA is clearly influenced by the OSTATNI ETAP as both films are set in a woman's camp and feature sadistic female SS-guards.

However, due to historical circumstances there are many aspects in the film which have later been more or less dropped or at least received lesser attention. The role of women as both victims and perpetrators is at the center of the film, and large space is given to show the cruelty of Kapos, block elders (women with a black triangle, implicating "Anti-socials" and criminals) and SS-collaborating and egoistic inmates as well. The concept of primary Jewish suffering at Auschwitz now at the core of the narrative is de-emphasized, and the Jews are presented as just one of many peoples (f.e. Russians and French are shown) interned and murdered there. There is a more explicit focus on communists and Poles being victimized, as well as a clear sympathy for Stalin and the Red Army, which also shows in the rather unconvincing melodramatic final scene, when the heroine, facing execution, holds an accusing speech against their henchmen while soviet planes appear in the sky like in a last-minute-rescue. A final title claims the highly exaggerated number of 4.5 Mio victims at Auschwitz, a number that was corrected only decades later, in 1990.

The portrayal of the SS is effective but pretty cliché-ridden, and the stereotypes presented here have become stock ingredients of the genre - such as fat, ugly, stupid and vain Nazis with scars on their faces and Iron Crosses on their fancy uniforms, cynically dancing waltzes and drinking champagne in their "free" time, stiff cigarette-smoking-"we-have-ways-to-make-you-talk"-torture-officers, and Ilse-Koch-like SS women.

Overall OSTATNI ETAP is both an exceptionable document and a well-made film, which beats SCHINDLER'S LIST by far. It is a pity that this film has become so obscure.

In common with Donskoi's 'The Rainbow' and Rossellini's 'Rome, open City', the effectiveness of Wanda Jakubowska's film lies in its sheer immediacy. Its power to shock has been somewhat diluted by later and more graphic depictions of the Holocaust but it nonetheless remains the blueprint.

Some critics have unfairly referred to it as a 'Hollywoodised' version of life in Auschwitz but the director has understandably chosen to sanitise events so as to make her film more palatable to post-war audiences.

Although Jakubowska and her fellow writer Gerda Schneider, a former 'blocksenior', have based the material on the personal stories of prisoners, many of whom appear in the film, the main female protagonists are all professional actresses. Extremely popular and photogenic Barbara Drapinska as the interpreter, Tatyana Guretskaya as the doctor and the nurse of Antonia Górecka are symbols of resistance whilst the banality of evil is portrayed by Aleksandra Slaska as the overseer, which made her inspired casting in Munk's 'Passenger' fifteen years later.

Filmed in the remains of Auschwitz, individual scenes haunt and no more heartrending use has been made in film of La Marseillaise. It is both a grim reminder of the depths of cruelty to which humans can sink and a testament to the triumph of the human spirit. On a purely technical level, the camerawork, editing and score are exemplary.

In contrast to the film's neo-realistic treatment, the overtly propogandist climax has naturally dated the film immeasurably but must be viewed in its historical context.

The film has rightly been called 'a courageous act of remembrance' but as an unreformed Communist, Jakubowska's subsequently blinkered adherence to a brutally oppressive and discredited ideology does her little credit.

When Polish filmmaker Wanda Jakubowska was sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau German concentration camp, all she could think of during her darkest days was to make a movie of her experiences-that is if she survived. She miraculously did. In the first film to personally dramatize the life and death inside a Nazi extermination camp during World War Two was March 1948's "The Last Stage." This movie highly influenced directors Steven Spielberg, Alain Resnais and others who made films centered on the Holocaust and what millions of victims went through on their way to labor camps and the gas chambers.

"The decision to make a film about Auschwitz originated as soon as I crossed the camp's gate," reflected Jakubowska, who had been involved in the Polish film industry several years before her arrest by the German Gestapo in 1942. The Polish filmmaker years earlier had been nominated for an Oscar in 1933 for her short documentary 'The Sea,' making her the first female director to be honored by the Academy Awards. When Poland was invaded by Germany in 1939, she joined an underground resistance group before her arrest. Jakubowska was first sent to Auschwitz, then transferred to the all-women Ravensbruck concentration camp. It was there that most of the script for "The Last Stage" was based, although some of the exteriors of the film were shot in Auschwitz two years after its liberation.

Jakubowska's film is largely episodic, involving a number of dramatic threads the director either personally witnessed or seen by her co-writer Gerda Schneider, also a political prisoner who had been assigned by the SS guards to oversee some of the laborers. "The Last Stage's" primary character is Marta Weiss (Barbara Drapinska), a Jewish Polish inmate who is picked by the camp officer to be his interpreter since she knows German. Marta was based on Malka Zimetbaum, who escaped Auschwitz in the summer of 1944, only to be captured and executed.

Since Poland was under Soviet Union rule after the war, Jakubowska's novella, which became the basis of "The Last Stage's" script, went up the chain to Joseph Stalin, who personally green lighted the production. With the Soviets' cooperation, along with a dash of Communist ideologically, Jakubowska was given the use of Red Army soldiers to play both German guards and the local people of Oswiecim, Poland (Auschwitz). She was able to convince a number of female volunteers who were actually inmates at the concentration camp to play themselves. One assistant director filming on the grounds of the real-life Auschwitz camp commented these woman "were wiser than all assistant directors; they knew everything from experience. They saw it. Those former inmates were returning to their places." Once released, "The Last Stage," so named because Auschwitz was the last train station on the rail line transporting the prisoners to the camp, won several honors, including the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. In Poland Jakubowska's film was immensely popular. Film reviewer Saskia Baron wrote, "one of the key reasons to watch 'The Last Stage' is to see how many of the scenes Jakubowska created for the camera went on to become iconic images and source material for so many later films about the Holocaust."

Wanda Jakubowska's brutal look on Auschwitz was very disturbing and Horrific; this movie is one of the Early depictions of the Brutality of the Holocaust; in 1948, this movie was very shocking and realistic, and Many people didn't watch it, but it was great movie watched if you are in film school or not. I know that this movie is one of my favorite films of all time. To this day, this film is one of the finest films about the Holocaust. The Event This movie is still quoted extensively by succeeding directors, including Steven Spielberg in Schindler's List One of Spielberg his famous and one of the greatest film of all time.